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Physicist and professor From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charles Elwood Mendenhall (August 1, 1872 – August 18, 1935) was an American physicist and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Charles Elwood Mendenhall | |
---|---|
![]() In the University of Wisconsin–Madison yearbook for 1903 | |
Born | Columbus, Ohio, U.S. | August 1, 1872
Died | August 18, 1935 63) Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. | (aged
Resting place | Forest Hill Cemetery |
Spouse | |
Children | 4, including Thomas C. Mendenhall |
Relatives | Thomas Corwin Mendenhall (father) |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | |
Doctoral advisor | Henry Rowland |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Physics |
Institutions | University of Wisconsin–Madison (1901–1935) |
Doctoral students | Leland John Haworth |
Military career | |
Allegiance | ![]() |
Service/ | ![]() |
Years of service | 1917–1919 |
Rank | ![]() |
Battles/wars | World War I |
Charles Elwood Mendenhall was born on August 1, 1872, in Columbus, Ohio.[1][2] He was the son of Susan Allen (née Marple) and Thomas Corwin Mendenhall.[1][3] At the age of six to nine, he lived in Japan while his father taught at the University of Tokyo.[3] There he became friends with John Morse, son of Edward S. Morse.[3]
He received a Bachelor of Arts in 1894 from Rose Polytechnic in Terre Haute, Indiana.[1][3] Starting in 1895, he studied under Henry Rowland at Johns Hopkins University and received a PhD in 1898.[1][2][4] Under Rowland, he worked with Charles Greeley Abbot, head of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and fellow student Frederick A. Saunders, a fellow PhD candidate, on a black-body radiation problem for his thesis.[3]
After graduation from Rose Polytechnic in 1894, Mendenhall worked with George Putnam to make a transcontinental survey of the acceleration of gravity for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and taught physics for a year at the University of Pennsylvania.[1][3] From 1898 to 1901, he taught at Williams College.[1][3] In 1901, he succeeded fellow Hopkins graduate Robert W. Wood as assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[2][3] He became a full professor in 1905.[1][3][2]
He worked on a 1909 U.S. Mint assay and performed research at the Nela Laboratory in Cleveland in 1913.[3] He is known for inventing the V-wedge method in 1911.[1] In 1917, Mendenhall was made a Major of the Science and Research Division of the U.S. Army Signal Corps.[2][3] He worked closely with his friend Robert Andrews Millikan at the Signal Corps.[3] After World War I in 1919, he transferred to the U.S. Department of State, succeeding Henry A. Bumstead.[3] He served for six months as the scientific attaché at the U.S. Embassy in London.[2][3] He was chairman of the physical science division of the National Research Council in 1919 and 1920.[5]
He became the department chair at the University of Wisconsin in 1926.[1][3] In his time at the University of Wisconsin, he had 35 doctoral students, including Nobel Prize winner John Hasbrouck Van Vleck and Leland John Haworth.[1][6] He remained professor until his death in 1935.[7]
He was the vice president of The Optical Society in 1921 and the president of the American Physical Society from 1923 to 1925.[1][2][3] He was the vice president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1929.[3]
Mendenhall married Dorothy M. Reed of Talcottville, New York on February 14, 1906. They met as students at Johns Hopkins.[2][3] Together, they had four children, including Margaret, who died shortly after birth, Thomas Corwin Mendenhall and John Talcott Mendenhall.[2][8]
He played the violin and was active in musical circles for much of his life.[3]
Mendenhall died at a hospital in Madison, Wisconsin on August 18, 1935.[1] He was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery.
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